A couple of years ago, I took my nephews to an amusement park about an hour south of me. They live 3 hours north of me. While we were at the amusement park that day, we ran into quite a number of their friends throughout the day. So slightly unusual.

We left the park for home and ended up in a traffic jam on the highway. Up beside us pulls a carload of these friends. So the boys got to have a bit of a chat through the windows for a few minutes while we were stuck in traffic. It was a little surreal.

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After cleaning out my Dad's house, I have this advice: If you haven't used it in a year, throw it out!!!!.

this is my parents' story, but it's too good not to be told.My parents were on an Alaska cruise, and began talking to another passenger. Finding out they were from Kansas, she asked if they lived anywhere near Chanute. Why yes, it was about an hour away. She tells them that she has a friend who, since college, has had a practical joke going with his former roommate. It seems that one of the men had been using a crutch at the time of graduation, and he had left it behind, with a note instructing his roomie to take it back to the campus hospital and get the deposit for him. The roomie never got around to doing it, and returned the crutch awhile later, telling the man to return it himself. Roommate A then slipped the crutch back into Roommate B's car before he left, with the note re-attached.For decades, they had passed the crutch back and forth. It showed up at the wedding of one of the men's daughters, was delivered to a hotel where one of them was staying... the 'rule' was that the crutch could not be mailed but it had to be delivered by either of the roommates or another person acting on their behalf.When the ship docked, the lady took them to meet her friend, who had custody of the crutch. My parents agreed to deliver it to the roommate, who had just moved to Chanute to take the job of president of the community college.After my parents came back, we all started strategizing about how to deliver the crutch. I suggested that my parents contact the president and tell him they wanted to meet with him about a donation to his college. They went for it, dressed up like wealthy donors and arrived on campus to meet with him, carrying the crutch wrapped up in disguise. When they arrived, the president was speaking with a member of his faculty, and they were seated in his office. He came in, sat down, and asked what he could do for them. My mother bent down and unwrapped the crutch, as Dad said that they were there to make a donation. The president's eyes gleamed, Mom slid the crutch over to Dad, and he whipped it up and smacked it down on the president's desk. The president screamed, 'IT'S THE CRUTCH!', leaped up and ran out the door to get the professor he'd been talking to, as he had just been telling the guy the story of the crutch, and there it was!He took Mom and Dad to lunch, to get the whole story about how the crutch had gotten from Alaska to Kansas. He said he'd figured that he was safe for some time after making the move, because how would his friend find someone in Sitka, Alaska, who would carry the crutch to Chanute, Kansas!My parents did make a donation of a more traditional type, as well.

Getting on the plane after a tropical vacation, thousands of miles from home, making idle conversation with the guy next to me. He askes where I'm from, I say what country I live in.Him: Oh, me too! What area?I tell him.Him: I used to live near there, but I was born and raised at XXXI say "oh, my cousin married a girl from that area.He says "what's their names?"I think " what are the chances, but tell him "A" and "B", but they've moved to "far away country" now".He says "No way! They are some of our best friends! We've gone to visit them in "far away country".

Parents and I drove down to Chicago (I forget exactly why now - I think we were visiting family) and since it was too late to drive back when we were done, we stayed over in a hotel for the night. Well, Mom and I couldn't get any sleep so we went out to the lobby to sit around for a while and talk, and a young businessman came up to the front desk to check out as we were trying not to doze off. I was being much less successful at this than Mom was, as I remember being very rudely jolted back to coherency by her nudging me and asking if I understood what the businessman (now on his phone) was saying.

Huh?

Turned out the man was speaking Japanese. So when he sat down to wait for the airport shuttle, I greeted him. Just about made his day, I don't think he expected a tiny, half-asleep white girl to speak his language!

I was riding with someone from Tucson to San Diego, over the Chocolate Mountains (are they that name?). It was just after sunset, when he said "Need to make a detour. Gonna find snakes." I knew before hand he was a snake person, working on a project. But I didn't expect this.So we found a small highway, 2 lane kind, and started driving up and down, at 30mph. It was deserted, so it was really ok for us. You looked down onto the pavement, and if you saw something moving around, you pull over, and get the pillowcase out.We did find a snake! Parked on the shoulder, got snake right behind the head with pillowcase and finagled it into the thing. Snake went poop and started flinging it around (defense mechanism) inside the pillowcase. We put the pillowcase and snakey in the back of the truck and got back on the main freeway. Snake poop is very musky, and takes a few washes to get clean.

I was once on a flight between Houston and New York. I was seated between George W. Bush's ex-SIL, and the ex-wife of a high profile person at Dell Computers.

What's worse than a 3 hour flight seated between two bitter ex-wives exchanging war stories? Being on a 3 hour between two bitter ex-wives exchanging war stories, and hearing that the plane will have to circle for an hour before landing.

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My cousin's memoir of love and loneliness while raising a child with multiple disabilities will be out on Amazon soon! Know the Night, by Maria Mutch, has been called "full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."

We were taking a deluxe tour of the ship while on a cruise. Because this tour would be going into places that passengers normally don't see ( the laundry, food lockers in the galley and climbing a ladder up to the stacks) tour members were asked to wear long pants and sturdy shoes. For all of us that meant jeans and sneakers. Pictures were taken of the group at every stop.

The tour ended with cocktails and canapés with the Captain on the bridge. While we were there, a Bride and Groom arrived. Of course, we all offered a toast and a picture was taken of the beautifully dressed Bride and Groom surrounded by a dozen people wearing Tee shirts, jeans and sneakers.

Did I ever mention being handed a human skull while sitting in a farmer's parlour in the Orkneys?

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My cousin's memoir of love and loneliness while raising a child with multiple disabilities will be out on Amazon soon! Know the Night, by Maria Mutch, has been called "full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."

Snake went poop and started flinging it around (defense mechanism) inside the pillowcase.

OK...I have to ask. How does a snake fling poo? They don't have hands. I'm stumped :-).

With their tail. My sister owned snakes, one of which was a cranky bacon-fed knave who liked to fling poo.

Yep. Snakey, while being held vertically, pooped a little bit and starting swinging around. Flinging swinging that stuff. I don't think any got on me, but it STANK. IIRC, snakes don't have urethas/ways to pee, so both urine and feces comes out as one. Definitely a learning experience. Got to see that too!

Did I ever mention being handed a human skull while sitting in a farmer's parlour in the Orkneys?

You win.

It wasn't a CIS-Orkney episode, it was a visit to the Tomb of the Eagles http://www.tomboftheeagles.co.uk/. Human skulls, five-thousand-year old buildings, and mysterious noises - definitely worth the visit.

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My cousin's memoir of love and loneliness while raising a child with multiple disabilities will be out on Amazon soon! Know the Night, by Maria Mutch, has been called "full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."

Did I ever mention being handed a human skull while sitting in a farmer's parlour in the Orkneys?

You win.

It wasn't a CIS-Orkney episode, it was a visit to the Tomb of the Eagles http://www.tomboftheeagles.co.uk/. Human skulls, five-thousand-year old buildings, and mysterious noises - definitely worth the visit.

We were just in that area a week ago!But we didn't have time to get there and Maes Howe was all booked up.

Guess we'll just have to go back!

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"I think her scattergun was only loaded with commas and full-stops, although some of them cuddled together for warmth and produced little baby colons and semi-colons." ~ Margo

When I was a kid I grew up in a small town but my parents thought traveling was very important. We had stopped at a McDonald's to eat at a picnic table one day when I was probably around 10 or so. We were somewhere in the Midwest of the US; I don't remember where.

While we're sitting there, this group of motorcyclists rides up and parks - all black leather and rumbling engines and what-have-you. My eyeballs are as big as saucers and I admit, I didn't see bikers too often in real life at that age so I didn't know what to expect. Should I be scared? (I probably stared.)

They'd been talking amongst themselves and a few broke off from the group and started to walk toward the restaurant. As they did, one turned back and said, "Was that 12 Happy Meals?" and one of the bikers still with the bikes said, "Yes!"

I was immediately unafraid of them and since then have come to really enjoy talking to motorcyclists about their travels. That story still makes me smile.